Kell Brook faces an uncertain future after his promoter Eddie Hearn said he has suffered a broken eye socket for the second successive fight.
Brook lost his IBF world welterweight title to Errol Spence Jr. after sinking to one knee in the 11th round without being hit but unable to see, blinking and rubbing his swollen left eye before then being counted out.
It was the second successive fight the Briton suffered an eye injury and Hearn believes Brook has once again broken a bone around his eye.
Brook needed surgery to repair a fractured right orbital bone following a fifth round defeat to Gennady Golovkin in September.
This time, it was his left eye. If Brook does fight on, Hearn seems certain it will be at super-welterweight.
“It looks like a carbon copy of the last injury and it’s time to move up in weight,” Hearn said.
“Now he’s got to consider his future and I think he’s one of the best fighters in the world and he needs to move up in weight. For six rounds [against Spence] it looked like he was controlling it.
“There are still some big fights out there but it’s heavy duty to go through another operation.
“It’s the same injury as the Golovkin fight, which is unbelievable, but it was caused by Errol. There are no complaints, he was beaten by the better man and that was Errol Spence.
“The surgeon was in the ring after and had a look at it. It’s a big blow. There was a lot of pain in the first one [suffered in the Golovkin loss].”
Brook did not attend the post-fight press conference and went straight to hospital after being examined in the ring.
“I couldn’t see out of the eye, so I had to stop,” said Brook in the ring.
“I got hurt when I got put down, I’m a warrior and when you can’t see, there’s nothing you can do.”
Brook (36-2, 25 KOs), 31, was also down in the tenth round and struggled to cope with Spence’s speed and movement.
The unbeaten American landed over a hundred punches more than Brook and was ahead on all three judges’ scorecards — 97-92, 96-93 and 95-94 — when Brook was counted out.
While Brook’s career is in the balance, Spence (22-0, 19 KOs) is talking about world title unification fights against rival welterweight champions Keith Thurman and Manny Pacquiao.
“I want to fight Keith Thurman and Manny Pacquiao, I want to unify the titles and become No 1 in the division,” the 2012 Olympian told a press conference, with his toddler daughter sat on his knee.
Culled from ESPN
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